They all rose. The Frau Major passed her arm through the unhappy little woman's and urged with even greater insistence:
"We'll have a whole hour's walk back to town if we miss the car."
The little wife, completely at a loss, her whole body quivering, bent over her husband again to take leave. She was certain that his outburst had reference to her and held a grim deadly reproach, which she did not comprehend. She felt her husband draw back and start convulsively under the touch of her lips. And she sobbed aloud at the awful prospect of spending an endless night in the chilly neglected room in the hotel, left alone with this tormenting doubt. But the Frau Major drew her along, forcing her to run, and did not let go her arm until they had passed the sentinel at the gate and were out on the street. The gentlemen followed them with their eyes, saw them reappear once again on the street in the lamplight, and listened to the sound of the car receding in the distance. The Mussulman picked up his crutches, and winked at the Philosopher significantly, and said something with a yawn about going to bed. The cavalry officer looked down at the sick man curiously and felt sorry for him. Wanting to give the poor devil a bit of pleasure, he tapped him on his shoulder and said in his free and easy way:
"You've got a chic wife, I must say. I congratulate you."
The next instant he drew back startled. The pitiful heap on the bench jumped up suddenly, as though a force just awakened had tossed him up from his seat.
"Chic wife? Oh, yes. Very dashing!" came sputtering from his twitching lips with a fury that cast out the words like a seething stream. "She didn't shed a single tear when I left on the train. Oh, they were all very dashing when we went off. Poor Dill's wife was, too. Very plucky! She threw roses at him in the train and she'd been his wife for only two months." He chuckled disdainfully and clenched his teeth, fighting hard to suppress the tears burning in his threat. "Roses! He-he! And 'See you soon again!' They were all so patriotic! Our colonel congratulated Dill because his wife had restrained herself so well—as if he were simply going off to maneuvers."
The lieutenant was now standing up. He swayed on his legs, which he held wide apart, and supported himself on the cavalry captain's arm, and looked up into his face expectantly with unsteady eyes.
"Do you know what happened to him—to Dill? I was there. Do you know what?"
The captain looked at the others in dismay.
"Come on—come on to bed. Don't excite yourself," he stammered in embarrassment.